THE NEW YORKER, SEPTEMBER 7, 2015
45
protective and thirty per cent lighter, as
well as a smartphone for every o cer and
tablets for sixty-five hundred patrol cars,
giving o cers quick access to data and
reducing the amount of paperwork. Still,
the P.B.A. has gone without a new con-
tract since 2010. This past spring, Me-
lissa Mark-Viverito, the City Council
speaker, and Letitia James, the city's pub-
lic advocate, among others, called for the
Mayor to add a thousand cops, a request
that fell short of Lynch's request for an
increase of seven thousand. De Blasio op-
posed adding more o cers, but Bratton,
without specifying a number, publicly de-
clared that the department needed them.
The Polo Bar, Ralph Lauren's new
restaurant, o Fifth Avenue, is a di -
cult reservation to secure, but, on a week
night in late March, Bratton and his wife,
Rikki Klieman, a legal analyst for CBS
News and a former criminal-defense at-
torney, were sitting in a choice banquette
along the wall. "This is the new 'in' spot
for the one-per-centers," Bratton said,
with a chuckle.They greeted Dylan Lau-
ren, Ralph's daughter, and the WNBC-TV
anchor Chuck Scarborough and his wife,
Ellen, who are friends of the couple in
the Hamptons.Then Bratton pointed out
his two favorite items on the menu: the
rib-eye steak from Ralph Lauren's Colo-
rado ranch and the corned-beef sandwich.
While running for mayor, de Blasio
exhorted rich New Yorkers to cede more
of their income to "the other New York."
As a result, Bratton said, "one-per-centers
have a significant dislike" of de Blasio,
but he added that "they have a hard time
pointing to anything negative he's done
since he's been elected." He praised
de Blasio's introduction of universal
pre-K education, his support for a ord-
able housing, and his maintenance of a
vibrant economy. As for policing, he said,
"There's nothing we've disagreed on in
the months I've worked for him. He's
done more for the police than any mayor
I've served in thirty years."
Bratton has a two-hour meeting with
the Mayor every week, and they talk reg-
ularly. "His temperament is very much
like mine," he said. "I'm like this"---he
held two steady hands horizontally over
his charred rib eye. "Even in the midst
of all the demonstrations and craziness
in December and January, there was no
screaming, no demanding. He's a very
collaborative individual."John Miller, the
deputy commissioner for intelligence and
counterterrorism, and Bratton's confidant,
told me that, in contrast to Giuliani,
"Mayor de Blasio is very comfortable
conducting an orchestra. Giuliani was a
soloist. He didn't like any instruments
to play too loud." De Blasio declined to
be interviewed, but Anthony E. Shorris,
the first deputy mayor, told me, "I've
never seen anybody have a bad moment
face to face, even on a sta level."
So far, de Blasio's need to appear
pro-police seems to work in Bratton's
favor. On June 22nd, the Mayor an-
nounced that he had agreed to add thir-
teen hundred cops to the force---three
hundred more than the number sought
by Mark-Viverito. The next day, Bratton
invited minority ministers from around
the city to an Urban Ministers Sympo-
sium, in the gymnasium-like auditorium
of Police Headquarters, where they were
briefed on what the department is doing
to improve community relations, and were
asked for their help in preventing crime
and in recruiting more black cops.
De Blasio wasn't scheduled to appear,
but he came, he said, because "the com-
missioner told me of this extraordinary
gathering." He extolled New York as
"the safest big city in America" and
praised the "profound reforms under
way" in the N.Y.P.D. For months, he
had flatly insisted that no new cops
would be added to the department; now
he suggested that he had always been
in favor of enlarging the force to support
Bratton's e orts to improve
neighborhood policing.
At a press conference
afterward, a reporter asked
Bratton what role he had
played in securing the
added cops. He conceded
that the over-all total, thir-
teen hundred, was "not a
number that was just pulled
out of the sky---this was a
very specific, detailed number," and one
that his sta had privately recommended
to the Mayor after a careful analysis.
Another reporter asked how, if crime
is so low, Bratton convinced the Mayor
that the city needs more o cers. Bratton
replied that there are more 911 and 311
calls, more danger from terrorists, a mil-
lion more residents than in the nineteen-
nineties, and more tourists. The city was
growing, "and the police department had
not been." He said that the workforce in-
crease would bolster the experimental
community-policing program. Shorris
told me that "there was no rationale" for
adding more o cers in order to fight
crime, since New York "is the safest major
city in the U.S. But the argument that
found a sympathetic ear with the Mayor
was a much more profound question about
how to change policing."
During the press conference, however,
when I asked Bratton about his com-
mitment to broken-windows, he said,
"Quality-of-life policing is not going
away. Not so long as I'm commissioner,
and I don't think so long as Mayor de Bla-
sio is mayor. He understands it. He be-
lieves in it. We are committed to it. But
we are committed to doing it in a way
that, unlike unfortunately what hap-
pened with stop-question-and-frisk---
we will continue to try and do it in a
way that is not alienating but, rather,
gaining support for what we do."
Ekow Yankah told me, "I actually
think this is sad, in a way. Bratton is a
complicated guy. He strikes me in some
ways as deeply caring that police do bet-
ter both for police o cers and for citi-
zens. So I don't think he's some awful
bogeyman." But, he said, "no matter how
much good he does, I think the legacy
of broken-windows will be a huge scar.
Because otherwise he'd have a chance
of having a tremendous legacy."
At the Polo Bar, I asked Bratton if he
had given any thought to his legacy. He
had, of course: "That I will
once again accomplish what
I set out to do many years
ago and become the most
significant person in polic-
ing in the country. I think
I achieved that in the nine-
ties." Klieman exclaimed,
"And the boys are back."
She meant his longtime
colleagues and advisers, in-
cluding John Miller, Stephen Davis, Rob-
ert Wasserman, and the sociologist
George Kelling.
"If you look at the characters around
me, the only one missing is Jack," Brat-
ton said, referring to Maple. "Everybody
wanted to get back on the stage one last
time, because we all miss it. We all want
to be part of a great thing. We had it in
'94. We have it now."